Taala and Eroforth sat on the ridgeline, looking down toward the gentle, pastel slopes of Celondim. They had been on their way back to Bree when Eroforth had proposed this detour. “A nice camping spot I know of,” was the only explanation he gave Taala, before turning aside from the main path and leading them first hiking along faint game trails, then scrambling up steep cliffs, and finally trudging through a scrubby pine forest just below the ridgeline.
“I will be exacting vengeance for every scraped knee and turned ankle, Sellsword, for this pointless side trip,” Taala threatened as she followed, though she had no trouble keeping up. Eroforth hadn’t replied, just picked up the pace. It’d be worth it to see her reaction at the top.
And react she did, when they finally emerged from the trees and at the peak. The verdant elven lands spread below them like a map; snow clad peaks rose at their back; and the westering sun throwing a gentle light over all. The breeze brought the mingled scents of blossoms and snow, and even the faint echoes of the distant waterfall. “How… where… wow!” had been Taala’s dumbstruck response.
After the initial amazement had worn off, they’d pitched camp down in a sheltered dell, then returned to watch the sky blushing into sunset and the full moon rising beyond the Lhûn. Their conversation had turned to their comrades in their mercenary company, The Bloody Dawn, until they found themselves speculating whether Blince had sired more bastards than Hardoleth had, Taala’s late father.
“My father did,” Taala stated, definitely.
“Maybe,” Eroforth conceded, “yet Blince is still hard at work… or do I mean at work hard?”
“You’re one to talk,” she retorted. “No doubt you’ve bastards of your own. You ploughed enough women in those towns you passed through. Likely broke a few hearts in your wake, too.”
Eroforth sobered a little. “It’s possible,” he conceded, “though I took some care. If I do have children, no one told me about it! But I suppose a few husbands might be wondering where their babe’s red hair came from.” He afforded himself a grin, looking back at her, “As for broken hearts, well, when caravanning, I didn’t stay anywhere long enough for that.”
Taala shook her head dismissively. “Some women fall in love as easily as grass grows Eroforth. It’s usually the fault of their parents.”
He raised an eyebrow, skeptical.
“It’s true. Women are taught that their worth depends upon snaring a good husband, little more. They read much into the spoken word, whatever the intent, and they mistake a kiss as a declaration of undying love.” She nudged him with her elbow. “Unless you consorted only with accomplished and worldly women, you broke some hearts, believe me!”
“Hmmm,” he murmured, sounding a little discomfited by this notion. “Well, you at least didn’t fall in love easily. Nor do I intend to break your heart.”
“Break my heart,” Taala retorted, “and I will break your skull!” She leaned in to kiss him before looking back over the valley. “I made it my business to not fall in love, you know. But you made it impossible not to love you. If you were able to make me fall in love, then those others wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
A grin formed on her lips, and she placed both hands upon her heart, mimicking a weeping woman “Eee..rooo..forth.., you broke my heart” she wailed theatrically. A small chipmunk, who’d been nervously watching the humans from the shelter of a scruffy blueberry bush, started at this cry and bolted for the safety of the nearest tree.
Eroforth laughed. “Come now, any woman who shrieked like that would surely have thrown herself from the rooftops, rather than pine after me so terribly.”
Taala rubbed her eyes, further exaggerating the farce. “Eroforth… what of your son… little Thomas?”
Eroforth leaned back on his elbows, grinning. “You’re just determined that I should have a bastard out there somewhere, aren’t you?”
Taala’s expression changed in an instant. Here she was, mocking those whom she had once dismissed as fools. But they were braver than she’d been. They’d dared to love. “No” she answered, flatly.
Eroforth frowned, puzzled at her sudden shift of mood. “Then why do you jest about it?”
Typically, Taala chose not to answer, instead just staring out toward the distant line of hills against the roseate sky.
He grabbed her hand, not letting the issue drop, his own jovial mood ebbing away. “Taala… what’s wrong? One moment you’re laughing about my imaginary bastards, and now you look as if you have bitten into an apple full of worms… or snakes!”
She forced a smile and squeezed his hand. “It is nothing, really,” she insisted, though her smile slipped. “No more than a fleeting moment of sadness.” More than a fleeting moment, truth be told. Taala was separated from her only child, Tagan, who was now being raised by her mother and step-father. Tagen would have been told that she was his half-sister, if she had even been mentioned to him at all. Her free hand instinctively covered the scars on her abdomen, a gift from her step-father to ensure that Tagan would be the only such bastard.
Eroforth shook his head. “You haven’t lost your son. You could still go to Rohan and reclaim him.”
Her brow furrowed. “And take him away from all that he knows? He likely wouldn’t even remember me. Besides, what could I offer a child, living the life of a mercenary?”
“No, ours is not a good life for having children,” he agreed. Then he added, more slowly, “But someday, you may retire. Not everyone dies in the field, after all, or continues on until old and grey. What about then?”
Taala shrugged, casting her gaze towards the ground. Above, a hawk called once as it sailed toward the waterfall, riding the weakening thermals towards its distant nest.
Eroforth sat back up and slipped a comforting arm about her. “You’re doing it again,” he reprimanded, gently.
“Doing what?”
“Falling silent, shutting down. The way you do whenever we speak of something that renders you vulnerable.” He leaned in to kiss her neck, his voice softening. “Are we not yet used to vulnerable, just between us?”
She shrugged again. “There are still some things best left unsaid. I’m sure you have things that you do not tell me.”
“Nothing that would affect us, I don’t think,” he answered, after some reflection. “But if I narrated every day of my past, it’d take nearly as long to tell as to live.”
Taala nodded sagely. “As would mine. There is much I have not told you, but not because I would not. I… I just worry at times, that…” She trailed off, not finishing the thought.
“Go on…” he prompted. “You worry that … what?
Taala looked back to him and responded with a question. “If you could change something, anything… what would it be?”
“The subject? Ah, no, wait… you just did that”. He laughed but, accepting her deflection, answered without hesitation. “I’d change what happened to my mother.”
Taala nodded. “Do you think she would have liked me?”
“I… I don’t know,” he admitted, after a few moments' thought. “I was young enough when she died that, well, I don’t know what sort of woman she’d want me to fall in love with. It wasn’t something we ever discussed.”
“I’ve never even asked you her name.”
“Theadris,” he answered, sadness in his smile. “She said it was an old family name.”
“She was Eorling. I think she would have liked me well enough,” Taala reassured him… and herself.
“Probably. And even if she didn’t, she’d have come around eventually to our… to us being lovers.”
“Is that all we are Eroforth? Lovers? I’ve called a few men lovers, but they didn’t mean the same to me as you do.”
“What shall we call ourselves instead, then?” He asked, smiling.
“I don’t know… we are so many things, friends, comrades in arms, confidents, housemates.” She leaned against him, looking to the east. The moon had risen beyond the elven lands by now, casting a blue-silver gleam onto the shadowed waters below and onto the snowy peaks behind them, its radiance growing stronger as the multihued sunset slowly dimmed in the west.
“Perhaps we should invent a word, then. To mean just us,” Eroforth suggested.
They sat in companionable silence for a short spell, listening to the sounds of wind and water, and the occasional rustle of small animals, bedding down in nests and burrows for the night.
“I have given this matter much thought,” Taala finally answered, portentously. She had trouble forcing a straight face, beating back the mischievous smile that tried to creep over her mouth at this jest. “And there is only one thing for it.”
“And that is?” Eroforth asked, startled by her solemn tone.
She turned to look at him, her expression completely serious. “We should marry. Then I can call you husband, and you can call me wife.”
She turned her head again, as the corners of her mouth quirked back upwards. She and Eroforth had often joked about the absurdity of marriage, and the fools they saw rushing into it. Though, she remembered with an unexpected pang, Rhiannon had seemed so happy at her wedding, those long months ago. That had been right before she’d met Eroforth, hadn’t it?
Arms still about her, Eroforth sat frozen for a long moment. “I thought you didn’t care for marriage,” he said, carefully.
She hid her grin, looking off toward the rising moon, before composing herself and again answering in the same serious tone. “Ah... but I’ve never been in love before, or have had someone love me. Claim to love me, that is,” she added.
Eroforth stiffened. “You think that I do not really love you, because…” He trailed off and reached for her hand, unable to see the grin returning to her lips. “But, Taala!” Distress was evident in his voice.
She found and squeezed his hand in response, guilt gripping her now. She should have pity on the poor man and end the jest. She drew a breath.
“Alright,” Eroforth said, lacing his fingers with hers.
Taala stiffened. “Alright?”
“Alright,” he repeated. “Let’s get married.”
Taala turned in his lap and scowled, waiting for him to laugh.
“I mean,” he explained, “we’re sleeping only with each other, we’re getting a house together, we’ve both been with enough other people to know that we’re not likely to find better. So why not call this what it already is…” He paused, baffled. “What’s that look for? I’m agreeing with you”
Taala’s voice hitched. “You’re serious?” Her mouth hung open.
“Of course.” He blinked. “I’ve thought about it before, you know… but you always said you never wanted to and…” His cheeks reddened suddenly. “Oh. You were joking, weren’t you?”
She felt an overwhelming rush of love sweeping through her at the sight of his flushed complexion. “I thought you were jesting.”
Eroforth gaped, a fish out of water. “Jesting? I… uh… wasn’t?” he answered, voice rising on a faint query, unsure what response she wanted or expected.
“What does your heart tell you?” she asked, taking his other hand and looking deep into his eyes.
Eroforth’s grip tightened around hers, and he looked momentarily panicked. Then he shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “It tells me to spend the rest of my life with you.” Then, opening them, he added in a rush, “But we don’t need to get married for that, you know. I mean, you were just joking, and, you’re right, marriage is foolish and…” He swallowed hard, looking increasingly embarrassed. “And as long as I can call you ‘mine’, we don’t need to convince anyone else of anything.”
Taala released one of his hands to place her palm upon his cheek, checking the flow of his words. “Of course we don’t need to convince anyone. But I want to be your wife. We are married in every other sense; I would be proud to call you husband.”
Eroforth stared at her, various emotions surging across his face. “You mean… you mean you do want to…?” He struggled to get his mind around the revelation.
She nodded slowly, feeling out the idea herself. “That would truly set you apart from every other man I’ve had, because you are better than they. Never before have I wanted to join with another…” She shot a glance at his expression, suddenly worried that she’d trapped him by her ill-timed jest. “But we are suited as we are; I make no demands on you to change that.”
Eroforth stared at her for a moment longer, then pulled her to him for a hard kiss.
“Did that just happen?” she asked finally, her eyes twinkling.
“I think it did.” They kissed again, more like giddy adolescents now than hardened sellswords.
“We’re really going to do this?” She couldn’t stop grinning like a cat who’s snuck into a dairy. “We fight more than we do anything else!”
Eroforth chuckled. “I know. We’ve already got this married thing down pat, don’t we?”
“I love you Eroforth,” she said, wrapping her arms about him. The sun’s sinking rim cast its last rays onto the slope, tangling fingers of light through their red hair, then slipping up through the evergreens and into the clear mountain air. But then she planted a hand on his chest and pushed, opening a small space between them. "I love you, and I'll marry you, but..."
"But?"
"But I'm not going to wear a damned dress!"
Eroforth pulled her back against him, chuckling. "Agreed – on one condition: that we make a start on the wedding night right now."
“Then what are you waiting for Blue Eyes?” she demanded, pushing him down onto the mossy, moonlit stones. “A contract?"
((OOCLY: I would like to say a big thank you to Eroforth, my brilliant RP partner for his massive contribution to this story. It is lifted from actual RP, I think we were as surprised as the characters! Although we have edited and co-written this together most of the credit should go to Ero, because he has done the majority of the creative and technical stuff.
Lots of <3 & Hugs)).
